Information Technology (IT) Consultant

Job Description

Project	USAID Green Annamites
Office	ECODIT, 5^th Floor Sen River, Da Nang, Vietnam
Position	Information Technology (IT)Consultant
Duty station	Da Nang, Vietnam
Work area	This position will be based in Danang, Vietnam
Starting date	As soon as possible

PROJECT OVERVIEW

ECODIT is implementing the USAID-funded Green Annamites activity (the GA Project) in Quang Nam (QN) and Thua Thien Hue (TTH) provinces in central Vietnam. The purpose of the Green Annamites activity is to assist Vietnam’s transition to climate-smart, low emission, and resilient development that protects people, landscapes, and biodiversity in Vietnam’s priority forested provinces. The project’s overall period of performance is September 26, 2016 to December 16, 2020, subject to the availability of funding, and includes three main tasks:

Increase application of low emission land use: conserve the existing carbon sink; stop emission from small scale deforestation and degradation, and unsustainable agricultural practices; and increase carbon sequestration from restoration of degraded landscapes. A key component of Green Annamites’ intervention strategy is the focus on livelihood improvement and value chains, aiming at generating sustainable revenue streams for communities living in forested areas and in or around protected areas.
Strengthen biodiversity conservation: mitigate threats to the globally significant biodiversity in central Vietnam, including poaching and activities that destroy habitats for wildlife and cause habitat fragmentation (e.g., deforestation, forest degradation, and conversion of natural forest into plantation).
Increase resilience for vulnerable communities: ensure that results of activities supported under the two other components are not affected by climate change impacts. In addition, under this task the Program conducts standalone activities to build resilience for vulnerable communities. Much of these activities reflect findings and recommendations from the climate vulnerability assessment findings.

Key program results include improving the livelihoods of 20,000 forest dependent people; improving biodiversity of over 400,000 hectares of natural forest, mobilizing at least $20 million in public and private resources for sustainable livelihoods and forest conservation; and avoiding and/or removing the equivalent of at least 7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The GA Project is entering to the fourth year of its implementation and during that last year, the Project wants to enhance the monitoring, evaluating, reporting and compiling the data from the supported activities. Therefore, the GA Project seeks a qualified IT consultant to provide technical support on renovating the online M&E system of the GA Project. The Consultant shall conduct all activities and prepare deliverables under the overall supervision of the Chief of Party (COP), Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) and direct supervision of M&E Specialist based in Da Nang, Vietnam.

A user manual for the current system is posted together with the SOW for reference. For more details on the current system and the consultancy requirements, the Project is offering the interested candidates to participate on the online presentation of the system, via Skype on January 20th (Monday). Please register to the conference by January 16th with Mr. Ong Dinh Bao Tri (0905225761, tri.ong@ecodit.com.vn , Skype: ongdinhbaotri).

OBJECTIVES

Renovate the current online M&E system so that the system allows for the integration of the GA Project data verification process;
Improve the reporting and presentation tier of the online M&E system of the GA Project so that information extracting could be more convenient and user friendly;
Improve the supporting document upload and retrieve to make the process of data quality check for the GA Project indicator progress convenient.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Work with the M&E Specialist and other staff of the GA Project to explore the current system status and discuss the detailed requirements;
Submit an inception note, specifying the approaches/techniques to address the Duties and Responsibilities” in this SOW;
Design reports that crosstabling the indicator progress/ accumulative information by year/quarter, and graphically present the indicator progress/ accumulative information in the form of tables and charts. The charts include: indicator accumulative/ progress by year against project/ annual targets, indicator accumulative/ progress by quarter for a specific year;
Propose the algorithm and update the current IP reporting page based on the current procedure of the project approval to ensure the integrity of the data, to make sure the data cannot be edited after submission to the PM;
Propose a solution to improve the institutional capacity building tracker;
Propose and implement a solution to allow for an efficient tracing back the supporting documents relating to the progress of an indicator for a specific quarter in a year;
De-bugging the system.

LEVEL OF EFFORT, REPORTS, DELIVERABLES, AND TIMELINE

The assignment will be implemented from Feb 15th to March 30th, 2020, with total level of effort (LOE) is not exceed 20 days, based on the break-down in the Exhibit 1 below. All reports are required in English.

Exhibit 1. Deliverables and Due Dates

ID	Deliverable	Description	LOEs	Due Date
1	Inception note	The inception note specifies conceptually the approaches/techniques and algorithms to the issues/ items requested in this SOW	3	7 working days from the contract sign
2	Data verification process for activity progress and indicator integrated into the activity reporting page	The system allows for 1) data approval process: PM submit data and the lead/ supervisor approve to finalize the reported data, then the system lock itself at the reported record, 2) the activity reporting page become expired/ read only after the implementation phase. Submit a summary of the work done.	5	7 days from the inception approval
3	Accumulative and progress reports	Reports that crosstabling the indicator progress/ accumulative information by year/quarter, with graphically presentation of the indicator progress/ accumulative information in the form of tables and charts. The charts include: indicator accumulative/ progress by year against project/ annual targets, indicator accumulative/ progress by quarter for a specific year. Note that, the report of indicator progress/ accumulative data need to be made together with the disaggregation of gender, geographical location, sector (public, private, community). Submit a summary of the work done.	4	7 days from the second deliverable
4	Capacity building tracker integrated into activity reporting page	Institutional capacity building tracker developed and integrated into the activity reporting page so that IP and PM can undertake reporting from the activity level. Submit a summary of the work done.	3	5 days from deliverable 3
5	Supporting document uploading and retrieving enhanced	The system allows for an efficient tracing back the supporting documents relating to the progress of an indicator for a specific quarter in a year. Submit a summary of the work done.	2	5 days from deliverable 4
6	Bug fix	Fixing a number of bugs: trapping the date/time format error, number format error, field size length error at specific locations in the system. Submit a summary of the bugs fixed	2	5 days from deliverable 5
7	Final report	Description of the tools developed and user guide notes	1	5 days from deliverable 6
	Total working days		20 days

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

Advanced in relational database, specifically, database schema design and querying in a relational database context with practical experience working with MSAccess;
Extensive experience in internet .Net technology development (VS2017);
Advanced in VisualBasic.Net programming language;
Experienced with .Net charting technologies;
Advanced in JavaScript for interface development tasks;
Excellent writing and analytical skill in drafting strategies and reports;
Competent in interpersonal and communication skills in Vietnamese and English;
Understanding of Theory of Change and Project monitoring issues is an advance;
Vietnamese nationality.

Interested candidates should send an application package including: